Perdita: The Life Of Mary Robinson

  • ISBN: 9780007164592
  • Author: Paula Byrne
  • Description:
    Sex, fame and scandal in the theatrical, literary and social circles of late-eighteenth century England. One of the most flamboyant women of the late-eighteenth century, Mary Robinson's life was marked by reversals of fortune. After being raised by a middle-class father, Mary was married, at age fourteen, to Thomas Robinson. His dissipated lifestyle landed the couple and their baby in debtors' prison, where Mary wrote her first book of poetry and met lifelong friend Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. On her release, Mary quickly became one of the most popular actresses of the day, famously playing Perdita in The Winter's Tale for a rapt audience that included the Prince of Wales, who fell madly in love with her. She later used his copious love letters for blackmail. This authoritative and engaging book presents a fascinating portrait of a woman who was variously darling of the London stage, a poet whose work was admired by Coleridge and a mistress to the most powerful men in England, and yet whose fortunes were nevertheless precarious, always on the brink of being squandered through recklessness, excess and passion. From the Inside Flap To Coleridge she was 'a woman of undoubted genius', to others she was simply 'the most interesting woman of her age'. She was in her time the darling of the London stage, mistress to the most powerful men in England, a renowned feminist thinker, and a best-selling author more famous for her poetry than Wordsworth.But though she was one of the most flamboyant women of the late-eighteenth century, Mary Robinson's life was also scarred by reversals of fortune. After being abandoned by her merchant father, who left England to establish a fishery among the Canadian Esquimo, Mary was married, at age fifteen, to Thomas Robinson. His dissapated lifestyle landed the couple and their baby in debtors' prison, where Mary wrote her first book of poetry and met lifelong friend Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.On her release, Mary quickly became one of the most popular actresses of the day, famously playing Perdita in The Winter's Tale for a rapt audience that included the Prince of Wales, who fell madly in love with her. She later used his copious love letters for blackmail. After being paralysed, apparantly after a miscarriage, she remade herself as a writer.In this sparkling and authoritative biography, with its fascinating findings about Mary Robinson's close creative relationship with Coleridge, Paula Byrne describes a woman whose beginnings were the stuff of eighteenth-century urbanity, and whose latter life was the very type of Romantic myth-making: she wrote opium-fuelled poetry as Coleridge did, she expounded on the rights of women, and Godwin fell heavily for her charms. Her revealing story, therefore, is both remarkable and important for the way in which, uniquely, it epitomises the metamorphosis between two of the most influential sensibilities in British life, though and literature. About the Author Paula Byrne was born in Birkenhead and has a PhD from the University of Liverpool, where she is a Research Fellow in English Literature. Her first book, Jane Austen and the Theatre, was shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize. A regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, she lives in Warwickshire with her two young children and her husband, the critic and biographer Jonathan Bate.
  • Pages: 352
  • Format: Paperback
  • Genre: Biography
  • Rating: Not yet rated

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